Night Lights
by Itisariddle
Summary: A collection of drabbles based on the movie Only Lovers left Alive. Set to M to be sure, for future chapters.
1. Death and gun

**A/N: A collection of ficlets written for the movie Only lovers left alive. Most of these were written in 2015 when I first saw the movie but every time I re-watch it I write. Some of that writing can be found in this collection.**

 **If you spot grammar and spelling mistakes please PM me.**

 **Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, they belong to the genius of Jim Jarmuch and the various actors, producers and such associated with the movie.**

 **1\. Death and Gun**

 _Adam's thoughts as he waits for Eve to return to him._

Eve.

He can still hear his wife as she kisses this new piece of ugly zombie technology that connects him to her. He hates all this new shit the zombies use to become even more detached, even more polluted. He has tried to tell Eve, tell her how ugly how disposable all these new things are. How utterly without vision. But Eve found use for it, she says. The most perfect use the most holy use. It connects her to him and to Eve that is close to divine.

Adam stands up, sits back down. He is restless in a way he had not been in a long while.

Eve is coming.

He ponders all the meanings of the words. Part of him hates himself for being this weak, this needy. He loves Eve, he wants her happiness, her joy is his joy and right now he knows that he is the reason for her discomfort he is the reason that she needs to travel and that is such a drag.

It is also dangerous but they both neglect to talk about that.

He has told her that he loved her. But they both that he was merely begging for her to come. How long has it been since he had truly seen her? Not through some device but with his own eyes? Seventy years? Close to it.

How long since he had touched her?

She will be here soon and he will be able to. The possibilities that come with having Eve close make him temporarily insane.

He needs to move, run, dance. Eve would like him if she saw him right now.

Adam sits behind his drums, an instrument he has not touched for weeks. It's rudeness had bothered him lately, reminded him of decay. But right now the drums seem like a wonderful thing, a magical thing and he takes the wooden sticks in his hands and plays and plays for what seem hours and every song is about her. Every touch of the wood against the metal of the drums is about him and her.

Adam stands, walks towards the window suddenly convinced that she is already here. And yet he knows that flights don't work that way. Right now she is probably busy, probably packing her precious books, and knowing her that could take a while. He can get lost in music but when Eve reads she reads so completely and beautifully that he knows, watching her, that he will never reach that place of peace that contemplation of wholeness that she can experience is something that lies beyond his grasp.

That's ok. He does not love Eve for how she is different from him, or how she can complete him. There were no promises made at either of their weddings.

He just loves Eve.

It's a condition, in this case a pleasant one.

He switches to guitar and cannot remember how long he plays it as his mind wanders. For the first time in weeks, he is not thinking about the zombies, the pain of this existence is still here but he knows that soon she will be here and he can exist for her for a while. His fingers run over the guitar strings, these ones are firm and made with the delicacy of old times. He can feel the artisanship under his fingers, the amount of times this guitar has gone from one hand to another but he knows he will need Eve to tell him the exact age of this guitar.

He will need Eve to tell him how to turn the sand in the hourglass.

The doorbell sounds like a promise and he rushes to the door first convinced that it is her but then he remembers the world he is forced to exist in and steps back to the window instead. A wise decision as it turns out. Some rock and roll zombies are standing outside shouting and screaming. He can smell the stink of alcohol and something else probably heroin, it is always heroin these days, on them as they huddle in a group discussing ever so loudly if they have gotten the right house.

Fear grips him with iron hands and he has to focus, breath. He had not taken a breath in a couple of decades but right now, he feels he needs to. It is good to have the option. He steps away from the window counting his steps and cursing.

Where would she be now?

The thought makes it easier to ignore the shouting outside. This cannot do though he will have to do something about it. He can feel his fangs grow, become sharper at the thought but no, he will have to go to Ian. The blood pumping trough the veins of those mindless freaks outside is most definitely contaminated. Besides it is not worth it. Getting rid of some of them will only breed more.

Oh how he misses...humans. He remembers them; Byron and Shelly, they seemed to resemble some form of...something. He is not sure what he is looking for. He found divinity only in Eve there is no other. He is not looking for that anymore. But these creatures, these zombies that are left they are so...empty. Shallow and yet full of themselves. It makes him sick. It literally makes him sick he can feel it, he is sick with fear. Fear for them, of them. He will need to ask Ian to address this problem.

She is probably flying now.

Surrounded.

Helpless, given to the mercy of all those zombies in the airplane with her. Zombies flying the damn thing for her. Unaware of the precious cargo they carry.

She will do this all to get to him. And he could not be bothered to come to Tangier. Come here and kiss me she said. Adam shakes his head, promises himself to do just that as soon as she arrives.

Eve.

He knows she likes her irony. Likes her little coincidences, her beauty in life. He has never told her that Adam was the name given to him by the mother that brought him into the eternal life. There was a life before that, and a name, but that has ceased to matter a long time ago.

He can count the things Eve doesn't know on the fingers of one hand. He bends a thumb, a pinkie and a ring finger. One by one. It leaves him with two outstretched fingers, his hand the form of a gun. Will Ian find it for him he wonders, that bullet for his extra special art project?

And what will arrive first?

Eve or the bullet?

As it turns out it is the bullet that arrives first.

Ian stands in front of him, all giddy and excited. Like a good puppy dog pleased that he had succeeded. His eyes eager, his whole body rigid full of excitement, the sense of promise. Will he be let in on the secret?

The bullet is beautiful, the real kind of beauty. He can smell the wood, the way it had been, fresh and eternal, before it had been cut away for his own selfish needs.

Ian is still jumping up and down in front of him. He is not bad for a zombie and tonight Adam is in the mood to tell him that. He shoves money into the boys hand and watches him struggle. He wants to take it but some form of custom prevents him from doing so straight away. It is funny to watch costumes change through the centuries, this difficulty about money is a recent thing. In the past they just took when he gave. It is not like the bills are worth anything to him. But Ian feels obliged he keeps offering his services, his company. He needs to be told that it's all right. They are all such children.

It takes a while for Ian to leave.

When he is alone Adam sits on the ground in his bedroom and stares at the walls. They are filled with pictures, images of people long gone some friends, some like minds some just past heroes. He has no heroes any longer. He puts the bullet inside the gun and stares at it for a moment. The thing is so small it fits in his open hand with ease. It is strange, feeling one's mortality again. It makes him feel curiously alive. He wonders if it would be different if he had been alive if every day would have been a day that would not come back.

The zombies know what that is like. They are taught about death before they understand life and look what they have done. Destroyed their earth, their sky even their own blood.

It is enough. The gun is in his hands and it has been enough for such a long time that for a second the gun feels like the only way. He places it against his heart and his heart still feels colder than the barrel against his chest. He is about to do what should have been done in the first place. Kill a death there is no sin in that.

But then he thinks about Eve.

How she will walk into this apartment and find...whatever it is he is meant to become after the gun goes off.

He lets the air out of his lungs. It seems like a gunshot.

But then he takes another breath.

He can't do that to her. Eve is coming and he can't let her find...well that. He stands places the gun behind the matrass, there is no thought of hiding it he just wants it out of his own line of sight. To avoid temptation perhaps. He needs to do something, something good.

For her.

Eve is coming. It is unbelievable, unreal. So worth living for.


	2. Blood

**2\. Blood**

 _What happened after the movie ended_

Blood.

It fills him to the edges of his being. Sedates the pain inside. It makes him feel as alive as he dares to allow himself to feel. For this one moment, nothing matters. Not the fear of exposure, nor the smell of the coming sunrise, nor the vision of a dying friend.

Not even Eve matters in the moment.

He has chosen his pray without much care. He wanted the girl because to him she seemed to be more alive. They sat there, his love and him and watched the two young lovers in their passion. The girl seemed to be consumed by her lover's lust, his need for her. He had wanted to be the girl, felt a familiarity to her in a way that he had seldom felt for one of these zombies.

Blood.

There is nothing but the taste of it. The rush is exquisite. He hopes this blood is pure, he convinces himself that he knows it is. The girl's pulse is slowing; the blood is coming in intervals now. He drank a lot. Too much. Suddenly all he wants is to watch Eve in her moment. He lifts himself off the girl and a second passes before he can clearly locate his own body again. Then even before he has found himself completely, his eyes spot Eve.

She is sitting on the floor her head tilted back eyes closed. She is holding the boy but to Adam nothing exists but Eve. The boy is a nuisance distracting him from her. She is always beautiful when she feeds. He can never get enough, watching her. The hunger to see her is never as strong as the hunger for blood but it rivals it at times. And it has been so goddamn long since he had seen her feed, truly, as they were meant too.

Eve smiles. Her fangs visible just a little. There is something childlike in her expression, something secret as well. As if the part of her that she carries within, is visible for a moment. To Adam these moments are essential. They are his way of knowing her, the real her. The secret 'her' that is true and unique and all Eve. Her eyes suddenly open and she watches him watching her and smiles her regular Eve smile. Her lover's smile.

'Are you all right darling?'

'Are you?' he echoes, suddenly worried.

'I am fine' Eve says 'I think we got lucky.'

'The sun is coming up' he says. He can feel the goose bumps run down his back. Everything is more alive now, more highlighted like staring at a diamond in the sun.

Eve nods silently.

'What are we going to do with them?' she asks gently stroking the boy's forehead. Both are still alive, their breathing shallow, but there. He knows what he would like to do.

'Turn them' his chest tightens as he utters the words. He looks from the boy to the girl. He is half sitting up propped up by Eve's shoulder. He has long eyelashes and there are fine hairs standing alert on his arms. Adam can bet he tasted sweet. The girl is still where he left her, on the cold ground. Her head is turned, locks of thick dark curls spilled all over the naked tiles. Her eyes are closed, her body displayed in an unnatural position. She does not look like she is sleeping. But Adam cannot see the girl at all.

Blood is all he sees.

Oh but how he wants Eve to turn them. He is almost mad with the desire for it. It is like being a child again. He turns to Eve and says it again.

'Turn them.'

Eve blinks at him, her eyes unfocussed still.

'You do it.' she says throwing the words at him like a line that could have been left out of a novel for all the meaning it has. But to Adam it feels like his world is tilted on his head. He follows, Eve does. He has no strength to commit himself to a gesture like this. To bring these...these zombies...But these lovers are not zombies. Or no longer. They were, when they were kissing in the alleyway before the transformative power of himself and Eve touched them. Now they are in-between. A source of life, becoming death, as Adam and Eve wait for the killing sun.

He has no strength to give them life again.

Eve is behind him in a flash, her forehead resting against his shoulder. She is warm, the blood has made her almost feverish.

'You are ready' she whispers.

He is trembling. He can feel all of the strength the blood has given him leave his body. He feels alone and unloved and lonely and pushed to a limit he always knew he had. He can't act.

He can't do this.

It is as if he is back home writing that one symphony, that one piece of music that he knows is in inside him but that just does not come out. He feels like he is unable to reach this far into himself and still see a way back to the service.

And the sun is coming up.

'Eve'

She digs her nails painfully into his arm.

'You have always been able to do this' she says and her voice washes over him like a wave. It brings courage but it stings as well.

'Both of them?' he manages finally, her presence chokes him.

Eve steps away from him and sits back on the ground hugging her knees, her expression calm, waiting.

The sun is almost upon them, he can smell it in the air. He can also her the heartbeat of the girl slowing like a clock that is losing time. He bends, leaps over her again. She is cold now, the ground has taken her warmth and there is a second, a moment there where Adam is enraged enough to actually start hitting the greedy tiles. Then he sits on his knees, his eyes on his beloved as he slits open his wrist, his own blood pouring into his mouth.

It tastes sour. Burning his tongue and making him grimace. Eve's eyes hold his and she reaches out to him her body swaying lightly as it reaches for him. _Within her there is a strength I'll never know._ It is the last thought he has as he bows to the girl and presses her lips to the open wound on his arm. At first there is nothing, she is a limp weight in his arms, her motionless, cold body mocking him in a way that pierces him throughout.

But then her lips part and she finds the blood.


End file.
